Music Kiosk - Troyes

This bandstand was built thanks to the generosity of an old Trojan, Jean-Baptiste Brissonnet, who was described as a philanthropist.

As a simple hosiery worker, he went to Paris where he began making mechanical stockings. He despised pomp and circumstance and forbade all unnecessary expenditure, so that he amassed a fortune. At the end of his career, he had the good idea to leave 200,000 gold francs to the city of Troyes, in a will dated 15 May 1880. One of the conditions he set was the construction of a bandstand at the theatre: 20,000 francs, plus 12,000 francs to surround it with an iron fence. The eclectic donor also asked for a steam pump: 25,000 francs, 40,000 francs to light the shopping arcades with gas, 12,000 francs for the maintenance of the Gambetta Mall and the rest, about 90,000 francs, to enlarge the library.

He got it all!

This oriental-inspired bandstand was inaugurated in 1889, the year of the Eiffel Tower, seven years after the death of Mr Brissonnet.

The bandstand is located in the Jardin du Rocher along the rue Jules Lebocey, at the entrance to the garden, opposite the Théâtre de la Madeleine. The bandstand has a central circular stage with a diameter of approximately ten metres and stands on a raised stone plinth. The stand is surrounded by a skylight.

Twelve elegantly designed columns, which look like wood but are in fact cast iron, supplied by the Carrepuis foundry in the Somme, are topped by a frieze decorated with six spoked wheels and balusters, linked by a row of further vertical balusters. At the top, the zinc roof, with grinning mouths to spit out the rain, has a small bulbous bell tower in the centre, protected by a cute lightning rod.

The ceiling is composed of frieze strips and the brick used for the lower wall comes from Sommeval. The general effect is one of undeniable elegance. From place to place, around the perimeter , between the glazed earthenware in the openings of the enclosing latticework, a cartouche appears with the name of a famous musician: Massenet, Boieldieu (military music), Gounod, the elements of the fourth having been obliterated by the elements.

The city was grateful and inscribed the name of Jean-Baptiste Brissonnet on the shaft of the monument to benefactors (see “Place Jean-Jaurès”), and named the rue du Petit Cloître Saint-Pierre after him on 13 December 1895, as well as a pavilion in the municipal library.

The bandstand was restored in 1999 .

Willem Vandenameele